It may be beneficial to optimize the payload arrangement for a heavy duty machine such as a heavy duty excavator or a front shovel. An excavator is designed to operate in substantially-repetitive work cycles. For example, a front shovel or excavator may typically operate in work cycles that include digging, swinging, dumping, and returning steps for operating a bucket to dig and load fragmented rock, earth, minerals, overburden, and the like, for mining purposes. To improve the operation efficiency, a haul machine, such as a large mining truck, may be loaded to full capacity with a minimum number of work cycles of the front shovel.
One way to determine the total weight of the material loaded onto a mining truck is to automatically calculate or estimate the total payload delivered to the mining truck by the work tool of an excavator. Monitoring the total weight of each payload can ensure that the mining truck's capacity is fully used.
The above concerns have prompted designers to propose various means for more accurately measuring the payload amount in the bucket. One such method is known from U.S. Pat. No. 8,924,094 to Faivre et al. The '094 patent discloses a method of determining a payload including sensing a position of a tool, sensing a boom velocity, and sensing a boom swinging velocity. Thus, the '094 patent discloses determining the payload based on a movement of the bucket and boom. These types of determinations based on movement can include errors because the determinations depend on the operator of the excavator to move the bucket in a particular manner.